Sunday, March 25, 2007

I think everyone has fond memories related to food. Food has the power to bring back memories attached to your childhood or the place where you grew up or the person who prepared the dish so lovingly or any other thing associated to it, which are always pleasant. Erra karam dosa is one such dish to my husband, which draws him back to his childhood and his town. In fact he calls them Ramakkka dosalu, by the name of the person who used to prepare and sell them in his neighborhood, when he was a kid.

There is a sort of family business run by women, going on for years in smaller towns around Andhra Pradesh. Women sitting under thatched roofs, in front of their homes or on streets prepare and sell simple, South Indian breakfasts in the mornings to the long queue of customers. I feel, they take off the burden from busy moms and come to their rescue (at least a few times, when moms could afford). The breakfast dishes are neither fancy things sold at restaurants nor elaborate in menu. Instead they are simple dishes like dosas, idlis etc, which are tastier, cheaper and remind us of home made dishes. These places have a few, simple wooden benches and tables for the people who would like to eat there or You would get the food packed in leaves, specially meant for the purpose and then wrapped in (News)paper, if you are taking the stuff home.

Erra karam dosa is one such lovely breakfast dish served at these places. Though these dosas are prepared at our home, I have began associating these dosas with the above said places, because of my husband's nickname for them. These dosas are speciality of rayalaseema region in Andhra. Erra Karam represents the red colored chillie paste used in the dish. The crisp, golden colored dosas are smeared with onion - chillie paste and roasted chickpea powder and served with chutney.

Method:
Peel the skins of the onions and chop onions into large chunks.
Grind the onions, chillie powder and salt into a fine paste using water if required.
Heat oil in a pan, add the ground mixture to it and fry it till the raw smell of the onions disappear and the mixture becomes thicker.

Ingredients for the dosa batter:2 cups rice1/2 cup urad dal / skinned black gram1 handful of chana dal1 - 2 Tbsp poha / beaten rice flakes1 tsp methi seeds Salt to tasteMethod:*
Add all the ingredients to a big pot and wash them thoroughly twice
with water. Soak them in plenty of water for 3 - 4 hours. The water
level should be such that the ingredients should be immersed in water
through out the soaking period. *
After the soaking period, throw away the water used for soaking the
rice mixture. Grind the rice mixture in an electric grinder / blender
into a smooth batter using water as needed. The consistency of the
batter should be not runny. *Collect the batter into a big container, add salt and mix well. The
batter quantity will increase after the fermentation process and so
keeping that in mind, select a container big enough to store the batter.
Allow the batter to ferment for 10 - 12 hours in a warm place. If you
live in a hot, humid place the fermentation takes lesser time.*
I usually soak the ingredients during afternoon and grind them in
evening. I leave the batter container covered, in my convection oven
with the light on and allow it to ferment overnight. Dosa batter would
be ready for breakfast.

Making dosas:Heat a tawa / griddle. When you sprinkle a few drops of water on the griddle, the water should sizzle and evaporate. This means the griddle is ready. Pour a ladle full of batter on the griddle and spread it into a thin circle with the help of the backside of the ladle. Take ½ tsp of oil and spread around the edges of the circle / dosa. Cook on low - medium flame until the lower side turns golden brown. Flip the dosa and again spread some oil around dosa and let it sit for a minute or less so that it is brown on the other side too. Now again flip it, take a spoon of erra karam and spread on the dosa uniformly, sprinkle some daliya powder and put a little oil on the powder. Fold the dosa and let it cook on both sides for a few seconds. Remove the dosa with a spatula. Repeat the process with the remaining batter. You can just eat the dosas as it is or serve with chutney.

Note:The quantities I mentioned here are good for six people. You can reduce the quantities according to your needs.Post a comment

22 comments:

Suma,I love dosas with this chutney..A friend had once invited us for brunch and made these dosas..We ate so many that we lost count..A few questions for u:1. What is it that you refer to as "Daliya"?2. Is there any trick to make thin,crispy dosas? It would be great if u share it with me..My dosas always turn out a bit thick..I am a big dosa fan..I won't mind them having for breakfast, lunch, and dinner:)Swaps

Such a beautiful color dosa and I liked the memory associated with it so muchI don't make dosas at home as it doesn't come out crispy enough for me, idli sometimes but never tried dosa. Would love to have this somewhere. Do you know if "Karam Dosa" is available at restaurants, don't remember seeing them on the menu

Sandeepa,Thanks.These dosas are available only in some parts of Andhra. I don't think they would be on the menu of good restaurants even there. Unfortunately, they are not available here in USA or in India any where else except Andhra.Making plain dosas need not be such daunting task. You don't even need to add all the ingredients I mentioned. You can just add rice and uraddal and a tsp of poha.Give them a try and you would perfect them in no time.

Swapna,We too love these dosas.1. Roasted chana dal / pappulu which are used to make chutney are sold by Indian grocers as 'Daliya'here. This is a recent development. A few years back, they were sold as roasted chana dal.2. As far as I know, Good dosas depend upon the usage of the right combination of ingredients and proper fermentation.But if your dosas are good and the problem is their thickness, my guess is you are adding less water.Add a little bit more water to the batter and try.Or take less than a ladleful of batter and try to spread it immediately as thin as possible.I would be more than glad if it helps.

Hi Suma, I found your blog through Nupur's blog.Great blog with nice recipes and pictures.Erra Karam Dosa looks delicious.I have a question though,I would like to know which onion you use and is there any special tip to blend the onion.(whenever I use blender to make onion paste onion tastes bitter).Thanks Durga.

Hi Suma,Nice posting. My mother is from Rayalaseema too. We used to love these dosas on the streets whenever we visited Cuddapah (district). We call these ammammauri dosa (grandma'stown dosas).I would like to say that if you use the actual chilies instead of the powder in the karam pachadi it will be more authentic. Also frying in ghee will make a big difference.

You got the perfect reciepe for the karam dosa.These one's ,you can find on find on the road side tiffen shops ,I lived in Proddatur for 4 years,enjoyed the culture specific food from rayalaseema.I still miss them.....

Omg i am drooling already... This are my favorite too even i grew up in rayalseema and i am searching for this receipe from long time.... Now its time to prepare thanks suma for sharing awesome receipe